I also kind of like that he lost the fist fight, humanizes him. He's a city boy being brave, not Rambo. Plus the Sovereign State of Horse needed a moment to remind Cobb that he touched HIS Theo inappropriately, and that hooves in delicate places are a fraction of the pain he is owed for that.
Chapter 19: The Quick and the Dead
The silence in the town square was not an absence of sound, but a presence. It was a physical weight, a heavy, dusty pressure on the chest, making the warm, still air hard to breathe. A huge, bone-white moon hung in a black velvet sky, bleaching the color from everything, making the shadows under the boardwalks deep and impenetrable as wells. The scents were of cooling earth, dry wood, and the sweet, coppery tang of impending violence that seemed
There is a cost for this war.
For Will
For Andrew
and
For West.
But they are making that sacrifice for the people that matter most to them:
For Jacob, Tommy, Weston, and good old Uncle Peter.
Incredibly brave of him to agree to it. That's an Order of Canada when the dust settles.
I've been pushing an Operation Mincemeat narrative with this, give the enemy just enough to make a narrative up in their own minds.
The unstable, grieving psychopath with his hand hovering over the button. The trace of the bombs, the letter, Tremblay. The categorical denial that looks like a Brag. And the promise to take something the President really cares about.
There are moments, and there are moments. God, if one believed in him, uses people as his hands and acts through them. Small acts of kindness in a world lost to madness and cruelty. And the capacity for simple human kindness such as Darlene was a reminder that there were good people on each side of the divide. Working hard, giving when they saw need, and being his hands.
Chapter Fifteen
Sunday, December 22nd, 2019. 07:30 A.M. EST.
WORLD END: T-minus 80 days,4 hours, and 00 minutes.
The Situation Room, Langevin Block, Parliament Hill, Ottawa
December 22nd, 2019, 7:30 AM
The screen on the far wall hummed with static before snapping into the harsh, overlit detail of the Oval Office.
On the American side, the scene was a study in performative strength. The President of the United States sat hunched forward behind the Resolute Desk,
I've spent much of the day writing about Kyle Harding, and Finn Grady. Which has been an interesting exploration in Good boy vs Bad boy trope subversion, and an equally explosive duel between those two in a modern contemporary setting. I quite enjoy writing about this little village/town in the middle of bug-F**k nowhere Ontario.
Lydia is of the opinion that 1. There's got to be something in the water or 2. There aren't enough girls in town so the boys have gone prison rules.
Rourke's attention is squarely on Sawyer, the townsfolk won't get far, and as far as he is concerned Theo's unarmed and insignificant.
He's wrong on both counts.
I mean, I couldn't have a Speghetti Western without a proper duel, now could I?
The Traditional Duelist vs the Modern West.
Colt .38LC Lightning vs Schofield .45LC Snubnose
Black hat vs White hat.
And of course, the town clock.
*see fixed it boss!*
**Chapter 18: The Butcher’s Supper**
The descent into Silver Creek was not a ride into a town; it was a ride into a corpse, reanimated and puppeteered by a cold, surgical intelligence. The visceral fury that had propelled them from the ridge, fueled by the smoking horror of the cross, curdled in their guts as the first rooftops slid into view. The expected chaos—the drunken shouts of a victorious gang, the crackle of random gunfire, the leaping flames of wanton destruction—was absen